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Election fever: put your money on Nov 1

The best reason for Brown to call
a snap election is a shortage of
hard cash, says donald malcolm

Despite their brave talk in Blackpool, David Cameron and his advisors had just one aim during a long and rather gloomy summer - to avoid an early General Election.

One of the tactics they employed in an effort to scare the Labour Party was to boast about the mountain of cash - £10m - they have available for campaigning. It's now becoming clear that this tactic has backfired and that Gordon Brown will call an election - probably for Thursday November 1 - precisely because Labour has so much less cash than the Tories.

Some old Labour hands suggest that, by going early, the party could save as much as £15m. And that's £15m they don't even have.

Yesterday, with their leader visiting the troops - or as the Tories would have it, electioneering - in Iraq, it was hard to find a Labour MP who doesn't expect a snap

‘Gordon can’t
row back now after letting the speculation run so long’ said one southeast MP

election on either November 1 or 8.

An MP with a seat in the northwest of England said: "I don't know what's going to happen - but at the weekend I rented my campaign headquarters. Now I'm off to the shops to buy some thermals. I've never had to fight a winter election before."

A southeast MP with a highly marginal seat said: "Gordon can't row back now after letting the speculation run so long. It will be the cheapest election ever. The Tories won't be able to spend their cash and the Ashcroft loophole will be slammed shut."

He was referring to the Tory plans, spearheaded by their former treasurer, Lord Ashcroft, to spend a good chunk of their £10m in the key marginals where General Elections are won and lost. The 'loophole' is the fact that there are no limits on local spending - except during the formal General Election campaign period.

Once the snap election is called, the strict cap on spending - applicable to all parties - would come into immediate effect.

The £15m that veteran Labour